


to which we say: amen

by windupclock



Series: jewish neil indulgence [2]
Category: All For The Game - Nora Sakavic
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Canonical Child Abuse, Gen, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Jewish Neil Josten, Judaism, Parent Death, Shabbat | Sabbath | Sabt, neil goes to synagogue!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-16
Updated: 2018-12-16
Packaged: 2019-09-19 19:34:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,487
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17007852
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/windupclock/pseuds/windupclock
Summary: Nathaniel is raised Jewish, in the loosest sense of the word.





	to which we say: amen

**Author's Note:**

> this is the companion to my jewish mary fic, lauded be the name! the title is from the mourner's kaddish. if you have any questions feel free to ask!

Nathaniel is raised Jewish, in the loosest sense of the word.

He does not think about his childhood often -- it blurs together in blood and heat, in mottled stains on the floorboards of his bedroom and the scars that find a pattern across his skin. Cigarette burns and the imprints of hands with rings. It hurts to think about it, but when he does, it is the good moments. His father is not home and they light candles. His father is not home and his mother tells him stories. His father is not home and he covers pages in Hebrew letters, practicing until the curves are second nature.

His father is home and it is silent and cold.

It does not need to be said that Nathaniel never breathes a word of what happens when he is gone. He has tact enough to know that, an instinct for self-preservation that runs deep under his skin. Three thousand years deep. He keeps quiet and does not beg his mother for more.

He must be grateful for what he has. He must be grateful. It is not enough, but he is grateful.

* * *

Once or twice on the run he is indulged. His mother is harder, her sharp edges set and calcified, but she aches for it the way he does, he knows. He learns Hebrew words day by day and tells them to her late at night, when the dark makes them strangers again and he doesn’t have to see her bite her lip, hold back the reprimand that rises easy to her tongue. She should be angry, but she is not. It is foolhardy, but it is not.

They light candles. Cheap ones, round and small and awful, and they turn into pools of wax before the hour is out, but they light candles and learn the prayers together. His mother lights her cigarette and holds the flame against the candles like a shamash until they catch and blaze. They smile, for a moment, a thread stretching between them. Shared fire, shared bread. A family of two, strangers to everyone but each other.

 There are bad days, of course. His mother is not kind, not soft, and she shows her love in harsh reprimand and bruises on his shoulders. She keeps him alive, but there are nights when he lays still, scared to even breathe, and wonders if it wouldn’t be easier to let go. Float away, into nothing and air, scatter against the sky like ash. Stop living in fear.

 One day in Jerusalem, he promises himself, staring at the popcorn ceiling of another hotel room in a city he doesn’t remember, a halfway house before they go somewhere else again. One day at home.

* * *

After Nathaniel buries his mother, he throws up twice into the sand. When he has wiped the vomit from his mouth with the back of his hand, he murmurs the parts of the Kaddish that he remembers, and the words feel as rancid and out-of-place in his throat as the bile. He was not made for love, for forgiveness. He does not deserve to speak it.

* * *

Neil doesn't know if there's a synagogue in Millport. 

He doesn't practice; he can't practice, and he doesn't know if he wants to, but he burns cigarettes like candles to the filter on Friday evenings. The feeling of it burns in his chest – he knows he doesn't belong, knows it in the shape of his nose and the side-long glances, but he has no idea where he would. Not among good or righteous people, he knows that much.

When he finds himself in the computer lab, he can't help but look things up – when Passover is, the prayers for Shabbat, the rules of keeping kosher. He commits them to memory, his eyes fixed on the screen, until he knows the basics his mother never quite had a chance to teach him. He doesn't put the knowledge into practice, but he stores it away like the precious thing that it is. One day, he promises himself. Next year in Jerusalem.

It is a thing he is not worthy of, but he loves it in a way that makes his chest tighten. When April comes, he eats no bitter herbs, but he pulls out a chair in the cafeteria for Elijah nonetheless, thinking _maybe one day he'll show up._

He wishes. Oh, he wishes.

* * *

Elijah doesn’t show up, but Coach Wymack does, flanked by ghosts from Neil’s past and future.

* * *

 

He catches the cross hanging from Renee’s necklace and his spine stiffens. He has no reason to doubt her, but he has never known a kindness that did not come with a price, and Renee’s well of kindness seems to never run dry.

“Are you okay?” she asks, pursed into a frown, her eyebrows slightly creased. Concern. He hopes, stupidly, that it’s genuine.

Neil nods and looks away from her. He hears the gentle clink of her necklace against her rings as she holds it and twists it in her hand. “Is it this?”

He doesn’t answer.

“I understand.” Her voice is softer than he has any right to hear, softer than he deserves. They hardly know each other. “The first family that fostered me was Christian, or at least they thought they were. They were the sort of people who tried to pass judgement off as faith, and when they found out that I wasn’t who they expected me to be… they weren’t pleased. They were awful. I was back on the streets before I knew what was happening, and it was horrible, and I would never treat someone else like that. My faith teaches me love, Neil. Not hatred.”

Neil stays silent, but he doesn’t shake off the hand that Renee lays on his shoulder. “I promise,” she affirms. “Whatever you’re afraid of, I am not like that.”

“My mom was Jewish,” Neil says. “I am too, I guess. I wasn’t really raised as it, but -- it’s complicated. I don’t really know how to feel about religion. I don’t know… how to believe in something like that, given… everything.”

“Sometimes it isn’t about believing,” Renee says gently. “It’s more about trust. Like… letting yourself fall and knowing something will catch you.”

“Did something catch you?”

Renee nods. “Someone did.”

“Did it hurt?”

“Yes.”

* * *

“Do you go to church?”

“Huh?” Neil glances up, brow furrowed. He and Matt are in their room -- theirs alone, since everything with Seth, and it’s been quiet for going on an hour now.

“You don’t have to answer if it’s personal or something. I was just wondering -- my mom’s coming up this weekend, and she made me promise that I would invite you to come with us on Sunday, so, you know, the offer’s on the table if you want to.”

“I’ve, uh, never been to church. I’m Jewish.” He hasn't said it out loud in a long time, but it comes with a rush of relief when he does, as if he can make it true with the words alone. As if he can erase years of blood and unbelieving, years of crying and hearing nothing from above, with three syllables.

“Oh.” Matt frowns for a second. “Cool. So, synagogue, then?”

Neil shakes his head. “Once or twice, on holidays, but not every Shabbat or anything. We weren’t really observant. I haven’t gone at all since my mom died.”

“Do you ever want to?”

Neil shrugs. He’s thought about it before, but the thought makes him as anxious as it does excited. Walking into a synagogue. Reciting Hebrew, eating challah, drinking wine. The words he used to know have slipped from his grasp, but he remembers how the alphabet goes. He could pick it back up, if he wanted. He could go to synagogue.

“Not really,” he lies.

“That’s cool. So, do you keep kosher or anything?”

"I try to," Neil says. It comes out softer than he means it to, more genuine, the whole of his fraught and strained relationship with his Judaism seeping through into his voice without his permission. He tries to. That's more or less the sum of it.

* * *

Neil doesn't pray once during his time at Evermore.

He’s used to this – it’s never been this intense, before, but he’s used to bone-deep exhaustion, used to full-body aches, used to the way it takes his hands a second to respond to him and the way he twitches with a knife against his jaw. It's been a while, granted, but the memories haven't faded much. He was shot, back when he was Nathaniel; practicing with broken fingers is nothing.

(It isn't nothing, of course, it's hard and awful, but Neil pushes the pain down and retreats back into himself. Part of him had gone soft, being Neil for so long, so he summons Nathaniel again. He lets himself be a Wesninski, and it makes him sick but keeps him alive, which is a fair tradeoff for him.)

The second-worst part is the hair dye. Riko makes him stare at himself in the mirror, afterwards, and he sees his father there. For so long, it's been Mary staring back at him, with the dark curls and haunted eyes, but the only trace of her now is in the brown of his skin and the set of his nose. Otherwise, he belongs to his father, and he swallows down bile.

“Don't you look lovely, Nathan?” Riko whispers against his ear. Neil can't stop himself from flinching, and Riko laughs.

The worst of it, though, is the tattoo. It hurts, of course, but it's small, and Neil has been through far worse than needles. The awful part about it is that it's a crisp black reminder of his failure as a Jew, of the way he doesn't fit where he's supposed to. He'd never entertained any notions of getting buried in a Jewish cemetery, but it hurts nonetheless. Neil doesn't think Riko understands – for him, it's about the brand, about the ownership, and that makes him bristle in and of itself, but Neil has fought tooth-and-nail for every scrap of Judaism that he has, and now Riko has stolen another one from him.

“Fuck you,” he says calmly, meeting Riko's eyes in the mirror, and it is worth what happens afterwards.

* * *

He misses Hanukkah and Christmas that freshman year, but when Renee comes back to Palmetto in January, she greets Neil with a hug and a package wrapped in newspaper that she presses into his hand. When he unwraps it, alone in his dorm, he finds a silver star of David dangling from a matching chain. Simple but stunning, an easy complement to the cross Renee sports.

Neil clasps the necklace and tucks the charm under his shirt. His smile aches.

* * *

 

It is a question he knows Jews have been facing for hundreds and thousands of years, but knowing he is not alone in asking does not make it easier to answer. How can he believe in G-d when so many prayers have gone unanswered? When he has seen so much, done so much, watched as his mother turned to ash and bone -- how can he justify believing in someone who could have made it better?

He thinks of what Renee said: _close your eyes and fall_.

* * *

 

Neil goes to synagogue on a crisp Friday night. The sun has just dipped past the horizon, marking the beginning of Shabbat. It’s cool for early spring. Neil shoves his hands in the pocket of his hoodie and moves forward. Nineteen years have built up to this. He will not waste another.

An usher welcomes him just inside the door with a cheerful “Shabbat shalom!” and a prayer book. He nods and takes it, feeling out of place and awful, and heads into the sanctuary. He finds a place in a far-back pew and sits uneasily. The room is a mass of kippot in various colors, and people greet each other in bright Hebrew and English alike, exchanging hugs and cheek kisses and worshipful camaraderie. Neil slumps down against the hard wood of the pew and bites his lip. Maybe it was a mistake to come. Maybe he isn’t ready.

The rabbi, draped in a grey tallit, calls order from the bimah. Backlit by the ner tamid, he leads them in the Mincha, the Kabbalat Shabbat, and the Lecha Dodi. Neil stands up when he is asked, clutching his siddur like a lifeline. The words are unfamiliar, but he looks around and sees joy all around him. Joy in the air, thick enough to touch. Joy on the breath of the congregation as they recite prayers. It hums around him like a song, devout and beautiful, and he lets himself feel it.

_This is it,_ he thinks. _This is why._

After the service, they file into the hall for the oneg Shabbat, and after the Kiddush and Hamotzi, they eat and drink. Neil accepts a cup of wine, not bothering to point out that he’s not even twenty and not a bar mitzvah besides. It tastes good, and the challah tastes better, and candles ring the hall like jewelry. He catches the chain of his necklace and pulls the star out from under his shirt, letting it rest above his hoodie.

“Love the necklace,” a girl says, appearing at his side bearing wine and a hunk of challah. “You’re new here, right?”

Neil nods, a little terse.

“Sorry, sorry, I’m not like, a stalker,” she says in a rush, pulling a face. “I’ve just been going to this temple since I was a baby and I hadn’t seen you before, and you kind of have that wide-eyed baby deer look, so I thought maybe you were new to this. My name’s Fran,” she adds, sticking a hand out. “What’s yours?”

He shakes her hand, feeling bemused. Something about her earnest tone and the freckles scattered across her broad nose settles his nerves. “Neil,” he tells her. “Nice to meet you.”

“You too, yeah! So, did you like the service? Have you been to temple before, or are you, like, totally a newbie? Thinking of converting?”

“I’ve been to temple, um, a couple times. For holidays mostly. I’d never actually been for Shabbat before. It was… nice. I’m - I don’t know the term, sorry, but I’m not a convert. My mom was Jewish, but I didn’t really grow up around it, so I’m…” He gestures uselessly. “A little out of my depth.”

“Hey, that’s awesome! Good for you!” Fran’s smile is blinding, just on this side of overwhelming. “I’ve been practicing since before I was born, pretty much, so I don’t really know what that’s like, but it’s so cool that you’re taking that step. I’m glad you enjoyed the service. Should I expect you back next week?”

“I hope so.”

He hopes so.

At the end of the day, it's all he can do.


End file.
